


Adventures in Auditory Agony

by Millennial_Medusa



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bronan friendship, F/M, M/M, Pre-Epilogue, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, i made a horrible playlist and it inspired a horrible fic, post-trk, the gangsey, this is purely self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millennial_Medusa/pseuds/Millennial_Medusa
Summary: Gansey and Adam leave for a week. When they return, they discover an entertaining (if painful) development in Blue and Ronan's friendship.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 19
Kudos: 196





	Adventures in Auditory Agony

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entirely self-indulgent and silly little drabble that came to me when I was driving around and listening to [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4yKvO9nuNfXch428DLp5N8?si=u-VYecmzQRunn8denrUrdg) playlist. I literally just wrote it because I couldn't get the mental image of Ronan and Blue having horrible taste in music and torturing the others with it out of my head. It is v silly and may not make sense idk I've never written TRC content before but here we go

In the week following Gansey’s graduation, something strange happened.

He hadn’t wanted to leave for a week, not when he was going to be leaving Henrietta so soon anyway. He’d disliked the plan even more when Maura had insisted Blue couldn’t go with him, that if she was going on this road trip with him and Henry, the Fox Way ladies needed to take advantage of every moment they had with her. Gansey couldn’t begrudge Maura time with her daughter, just as he couldn’t blame his own mother for wanting him to spend a little time with the rest of the Gansey clan before he took off again.

So he acquiesced to his mother’s demand-phrased-as-a-polite-request that he would spend a few days at home, on the condition that he could bring Adam along. Adam was even less thrilled than Gansey at the prospect of leaving Henrietta, especially when he knew Ronan wouldn’t come with them, especially _especially_ when he remembered the last time he’d visited D.C. But Gansey desperately wanted company, and with Henry visiting his mother, Adam was the only option left, and he knew it. Besides, at Gansey’s suggestion, they’d added a few extra days for visiting some of the colleges Adam was applying to.

(Neither of them mentioned that the idea of some quality time together—just the two of them—before they each went their separate ways for the foreseeable future was an appealing one. They both thought it.)

The plan was met with mixed feelings by every party involved, but it went off without a hitch, and four family dinners, three college visits, two breakdowns in the Pig, and one emotional late-night heart to heart later, the two boys had returned to Henrietta. 

For a while, Gansey noticed nothing amiss. 

The first night back was a game night. As usual, Blue somehow managed to beat everyone at Super Smash Bros. despite passing up actually learning how to play in favor of smashing buttons at random. As usual, Adam was alarmingly good at Monopoly. As usual, Ronan got bored before they could finish a round and insisted on playing Cards Against Humanity instead. As usual, Gansey was terrible at every game but nonetheless seemed to have the most fun.

The next day was spent split off in pairs. Gansey spent some time at 300 Fox Way, helping out around the house and good-naturedly tasting Maura’s experimental teas before Blue got fed up with Orla, who was not in the least deterred from her usual flirtatiousness by the official nature of their relationship, and dragged him out of the house to 1) go for a drive, 2) make out in the back seat of the Pig, and 3) explore a local farmer’s market. The rest of the day was spent at Monmouth Manufacturing, though Adam and Ronan were nowhere to be seen. Ronan had been spending more nights at St. Agnes than Monmouth, though, so Gansey wasn’t surprised. All went as usual.

It was on his second full day back that Gansey realized something had happened during his week away.

After a lazy morning, everyone was gathered once more at Monmouth Manufacturing to go for a trip to the Barns. Ronan had volunteered to drive the BMW.

Adam and Gansey followed the other two as they headed out of the apartment, watching amusedly at the scene unfolding. Blue had thrown herself sideways into Ronan, and despite her size, she’d managed to knock him off balance for a moment.

“Hey, asshole, cut it out,” he growled, mussing the colorfully clipped mess of her hair affectionately.

Blue huffed and attempted to shove his hand away. He redoubled his efforts. She ducked away, but he followed, and it quickly escalated into a chaotic tussle.

“‘M gonna shave it all off,” came Blue’s muffled voice from behind Ronan’s arm, “just to spite you.”

Adam laughed. The sound made Gansey grin.

“I’d shave it for you if you asked nicely.”

“No way. It’s a punishment, not a reward.” By this time she had freed herself and was grinning breathlessly back at him as she jogged up to the Beemer.

Then Blue climbed in shotgun.

Ronan was unfazed by this. He hopped into the driver’s seat, and Gansey saw rather than heard him answering her quip.

Gansey, however, was not unfazed. And neither was Adam, if the slight frown and amused quirk of his lips when he turned to meet Gansey’s eyes was any indication.

Gansey could only shrug and follow Adam into the back seat.

Blue rode shotgun in the Camaro more frequently than Ronan or Adam did these days, and on the rare occasion that any of them ended up in Adam’s piece of shit car, she had as fair a shot as either of the others. But if Ronan was driving, it had always been Gansey or, more recently, Adam in the front. It wasn’t that Blue and Ronan weren’t close—they were just about as close now as any of them, and it made Gansey’s heart feel like it was swelling up three times it’s regular size, like the Grinch’s in the old cartoon he and Helen used to watch every December. But Blue had never attempted riding shotgun in the Beemer if either of the others were along, and Ronan had never asked her to, and something about it felt significant when she casually swung herself into the front seat.

It was practiced, Gansey realized as he buckled his seatbelt. It was easy. What had Ronan and Blue gotten up to while he and Adam were away?

He didn’t have to wonder long. 

Ronan wordlessly tossed Blue his phone, and she hooked it up to the aux that he’d dreamt to work in the BMW. This, too, was practiced and easy. Blue even knew his phone password. 

Just as they screeched out of the parking lot, some kind of music that Gansey could only call aggressive blasted through the speakers. It wasn’t the murder squash song, which he appreciated, but it also wasn’t all that much better. It was all angry electric music and yelling and loud, so loud, but Blue and Ronan were both yelling the words and head-banging, which he had never seen from either of them. It was so strange, he had to glance over at Adam for confirmation that he wasn’t hallucinating. Adam stared back at him wide-eyed. 

For a while they only watched in silence, and Gansey almost felt as though he were intruding on some kind of private ritual until Blue turned and began to teasingly sing some of the lyrics of the next song—a horrible, upbeat electronic sounding one—at him. From the few lyrics he could understand, it was about carrying out a relationship over the phone. It was more than a little pointed, and he found himself blushing at some of the more explicit lyrics. 

Some of his discomfort evaporated when she laughed delightedly at him and returned to dancing in her seat, replaced by fascination.

Finally, Adam broke in, yelling to be heard over the music, “Can someone please explain what is going on?”

Ronan met his eyes in the rearview mirror and shouted back, “We’re going to the Barns, Parrish. Where have you been?”

“Or do you just mean like, the state of the world today?” Blue asked, turning to face him. “Because you will not believe what’s going on with climate change.”

“I mean the state of my good ear, which is on the verge of becoming my other bad ear. The hell are we listening to?”

Blue lowered the volume just enough that they could speak without having to shout, warding off Ronan’s dirty look with one of her own. “Our playlist. I wanted to name it “emo to the excreamo,” but Ronan kept insisting on names that were objectively terrible and we couldn’t compromise so now it’s a sad nameless little playlist.”

“For the record, ‘songs to commit crimes to’ is the perfect name.”

“It doesn’t make sense! I can’t commit ecoterrorism while blasting Britney Spears.”

“Not with that attitude you can’t. You probably shouldn’t even fucking bother with the ecoterrorism if you aren’t gonna blast Britney Spears while you do it.”

Gansey’s head was spinning. “There’s Britney Spears on this playlist?”

“Obviously,” Blue shot back over her shoulder. It did not seem obvious to Gansey given that the current song was some kind of angry electric rock and that the playlist had been made by Ronan Lynch and Blue Sargent, but then again, nothing else about their current situation had seemed obvious to him ten minutes ago, either. 

“I can’t blast anything as bop-worthy as Britney Spears, or I’ll get caught and then I won’t be able to commit more ecoterrorism.” This Blue directed at Ronan. “You must be a terrible criminal.”

“Fine. ‘Songs to get murdered to’ works just as well.”

Blue punched him in the arm. “That’s insensitive! Gansey’s been murdered!”

Ronan barked out a surprised laugh at that. “Yeah, by you and your kiss of death, Maggot.”

“For the record,” Gansey interjected, “Jane’s kiss of death was vastly preferable to the thousands of hornet stings.”

“What a compliment.” Adam raised an eyebrow and looked from Gansey to Blue. 

Ronan snickered. “Congrats, Sargent. Kissing you is slightly better than getting stung to death.” 

Blue’s reply was interrupted by the sound of “it’s Britney, bitch,” from the stereo, which sent her scrambling to set the volume to its previous ear-bleeding level.

They carried on like this for a while, Ronan pushing 20 over the speed limit and Blue scream-singing lyrics to songs that almost all had to do with sex, cars, or both. Gansey thought the one about a dreamer in a Beemer seemed a little on the nose, and sentiment Adam voiced moments later.

“I can’t help it if I’m someone’s muse,” came the reply. Blue snorted loudly, and Ronan reached over and pinched her on the exposed skin between the top of her knee socks and her ripped shorts. She slapped his hand and squirmed away.

At one point, Blue sang (if you could call it that, when it was really closer to talking or shouting but set to music) the intro to a song that began, “Hey you lil piss baby,” leaning across the center console to get in Ronan’s face, without missing a single word. In fact, Gansey realized, she knew at least some (if not most) of the words to all of these songs, and he wondered just how many times they’d listened to them together. 

The fact that they had coordinated dance moves and established which of them sang specific parts when there were back and forth elements solidified for him that the answer was…many, many times. 

This coordination was amusing for the most part. An amused smirk played across Adam’s lips as he watched their stupid dances, and Gansey was just ruminating on how happy and carefree both of them seemed, open in a way he rarely saw from either of them, when their performance jolted him out of his reverie.

Blue was _moaning_. Loudly.

It was part of the song, of course, the singer’s desire to — like rabbits, with a moan in place of an expletive, blaring over and over through the speakers. Ronan was singing along with the rest of the lyrics. Blue contributed the…interjectory sounds, and apparently took this role very seriously.

When her eyes, glinting mischievously, met his in the rearview mirror, he realized she was doing this on purpose. To mess with him. His mouth finally caught up to his brain, and he spluttered a scandalized, “Jane!” 

She threw her head back and cackled gleefully. Ronan fist-bumped her. Gansey’s face felt hot.

“I think you’ve become a bad influence, Lynch,” Adam shouted, but he was failing to suppress his smile.

“If anything,” Ronan shot back, “ _Sargent’s_ been a bad influence on _me_. She’s the one that found most of these songs.”

Gansey wondered at that. He wondered all through the suggestive and outright explicit of the next song as well. He wondered at Blue’s ability to sing along without so much as a blush, all while he tried very hard not to think on any of the images his mind conjured up in response. 

But of course, she was dauntless and outspoken in everything she did. He smiled at the mental image of her playing these songs for Ronan, ranting all the while about how women in media are sexualized for male gratification but expected to keep themselves modest and pure, the double-edged sword that is the masculine perception of female sexuality, and raging against the vilification of the women who wrote songs expressing that sexuality while men could objectify women in their song’s as much as they pleased. Gansey wished he could’ve been there for Ronan’s response.

None of that made the upbeat, electronic excuse for music any more aurally appealing, unfortunately.

One song ended with sudden bursts of horrid, metallic clashing sounds at a volume so painful that he, Adam, and even Blue covered their ears. She reached to lower the volume, but Ronan slapped her hand away.

“Come on, Ronan,” Gansey yelled, “this isn’t even music! It’s just…screeching!” 

Ronan threw a wolfish grin at him over his shoulder. “I know. It sounds just like the Pig when she breaks down. Does it turn you on, Dick?”

Gansey let out a deep sigh, but before he could defend himself, the song had changed and Blue had let out a little excited yelp.

“I just remembered!” she gasped, grabbing for Ronan’s phone. “Henry gave me a song to play for you. You’re gonna love it.”

Ronan sneered. “I don’t trust Cheng’s taste in music.”

Blue only waved her hand dismissively and fiddled with his phone until a new song, not dissimilar in style to the rest, was playing. A few verses in, Adam began laughing, a full, joyous laugh rarely heard and positively contagious.

“It’s perfect for you, Ro,” he gasped out.

Ronan had to concede that a song about only answering the phone for your boyfriend’s personalized ringtone was rather fitting, even if Henry was the one to recommend it. He didn’t fight Blue when she added it to the playlist, and his threats following her announcement that she was making the song Adam’s ringtone were halfhearted at best. 

Looking from Blue and Ronan’s bickering to Adam’s gasping laughter, Gansey tried to take in and file away every detail. He wanted to be able to look back on this moment when they were spread out across the country, to remind himself that the separation was only temporary. His chest felt like it was going to burst.

By the time they got to the Barns, it was his eardrums that felt like they were going to burst.

“Next time,” he groaned, stepping out of the car and into the Virginia summer heat, “I’m bringing ear plugs.”


End file.
